When I was 8 years old I was involved in a drunk driving episode.
Me, around the time of the car incident.
I was a scared, shy, small for my age little girl who was witnessing the car heading straight for the center median on the highway.
I was screaming, crying and finally reached out for the steering wheel to jerk us to safety.
My mother came out of her stupor just in time to take back control of the steering wheel and somehow get us to safety.
Being a single mom with two little girls in the 1980’s I’m sure was tough. There wasn’t the support out there that there is now, and she had a lot of her own battles she was fighting. Choosing to intoxicate herself with alcohol was how she got through life.
I went from being that scared, shy, nervous, worried child to an anxious, depressed, negative thinking, self-hating adult.
While I did not have the addiction to alcohol my mother had, I did have an addiction to pity. An addiction to negativity. An addiction to being a victim.
I literally was intoxicated on it, feeling drunk on depression, and high on self-hate.
Going through life like that attracts a lot of negativity, bad luck and frustration. There was something way deep within me that said “this isn’t normal, I just want to be happy”, but I had no idea HOW to be happy.
When I got pregnant with my first son I realized that I had a decision to make. I could either continue the family history of intoxication, or I could get my shit together.
Becoming a mom helped me see that life was meant for more, that I was meant for more.
All that negativity put me in a stressful mindset and always made me feel really bad, depressed and worried all the time. All of that negative energy resulted in some pretty nasty physical symptoms inside my body – like candida, migraines, IBS, joint pain and adrenal fatigue.
I started to gain weight, I was in so much pain in my body all the time and I had zero positive practices in my life. I literally worked almost 24/7 and when I wasn’t working I was winding down with a glass of wine or flopped in front of the TV.
My pre-Delicious Life (doesn’t look so Delicious, does it?)
I’d do yoga on occasion, I’d go for walks. But I’d also shop. Shop shop shop so that I could feel a tiny bit happy. The rush I got from getting something new felt amazing, but then quickly faded into nothing within a few hours.
After my son was born I knew I had to change. I had this deep urgent desire to help other people. But I knew unless I got my shit together I couldn’t help anyone.
After graduating from nutrition school and starting my business I still found myself intoxicated with negativity, with self-doubt, with worry, and fear. I had made a big leap by changing careers and opening a business, I had clients too and was really good at helping people, but I still had a lack mindset that kept me from living a really great life.
And this was showing up for my clients too. I noticed that no matter how many kale recipes I gave them, they came back week after week not doing the work. Well…no matter how many “happiness” books I read, I kept not doing the work, too.
So I decided to take a different course of action and hired my first life coach. She actually cost me a lot of money and I had to sell my house to free up the money to work with her.
I was that fucking serious about getting “sober”.
I realized that helping people was my main mission in life, and that if I were to be a really great mom (and coach), I had to make big changes in my life. My marriage was falling apart, my business wasn’t going well…all in all, I was nothing but a drunk.
After hiring and working with this amazing coach of mine, a lot of things started to shift. I found I was criticizing myself less and less. I found myself actually liking who I was instead of genuinely HATING who I was. (Nobody on this planet could hate me as much as I hated me, I thought I was broken – if my mom didn’t love me, then who would or could?).
I started to explore spiritual practices – ones that always seemed so intriguing to me, like meditation and going deeper into yoga, and crystals and other “woo woo” stuff.
I started to dig deep into the corners of my mind and find out WHY I thought the way I thought, and more importantly, how can I create a new life.
It was a hard blow to learn that everything that was wrong in my life was my fault. It was my doing. I CREATED all of it.
But I had a lot of good too, which meant I created that as well.
Which meant, I could now CHOOSE how to create my future – continue to be a drunk or go through life Deliciously sober.
It’s still a work in progress. I have my days where I retreat back into that old self-hating mindset. Where I look in the mirror and see nothing but a big huge loser. Where I tell myself why bother, nobody is listening anyway.
And then I remember. I was given a gift. I was given an intoxicated mother so that I could learn the lessons and stop them, and so that I could teach the same to my people (anyone who will listen, actually),and so I put the negative narcotics away and hit refresh.
Sometimes I have to hit refresh daily. These wounds run deep and have taken me a long time to recover from, but I know now that all I need is support, accountability, to surround myself with people who also want to live better lives and to never forget the practices that keep me sane, like daily meditations which have truly helped me heal myself from deep depression.
Was that coach of mine the silver bullet that solved everything for me, hell no! But she helped me to find the one person who could help me do that…me.
For the rest of my life I will always be so grateful for that first coach because without her I would certainly still be living the life I was before – sad, depressed, self-loathing. Sure, I would have still read the books, watched the You Tube, ate the healthier foods, but I definitely would not have been able to see my blind spots and get the hell out of my own way without her help.
And now I do the same for countless women. I help you find the person inside of you who can hit refresh for you in your life so that you rid yourself of your intoxication whether it’s emotional eating, sugar cravings, stress and overwhelm, negative thinking, depression, anxiety…all of it.
Honoured to be an International Speaker and champion of Women’s Empowerment and Delicious Living all over the world!
I hope that my story has helped you in some way to see that I get it and that you’re not alone if you struggle with similar things like I did.
Why don’t we start a conversation? If anything I have said to you in this blog, or any of my blogs, videos or podcasts has resonated with you, and you’re curious about what it looks like to work together, grab a spot in my calendar (just click the button below). These calls are normally $97 but I’m offering them complementary this month to help you make the positive changes in your life you’re longing for. Feel free to schedule it in – what have you got to lose except all of that draining physical and emotional weight you’re carrying around.
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